


Hope, Love & Justice

by SonnyGoten



Series: You remind me of my humanity [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Batman: A Death in the Family, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Bruce Wayne is Insightful, But at the same time also Blind as a Bat, But in some ways Diana already understands Batman better than Bruce Wayne does, Character Study, Character study of the World's Finest Trinity, Diana tries to understand Batman, Gen, Guilt, Post-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Post-Death in the Family, Post-Justice League (2017), Post-Wonder Woman (2017), Regret, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17200418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonnyGoten/pseuds/SonnyGoten
Summary: “You're wrong, Bruce. Man has been seeking justice for the vulnerable since the beginning of time.”---Diana and Bruce have a conversation about humanity and the reasons behind Batman's choice in members for the Justice League.





	Hope, Love & Justice

**Author's Note:**

> This was not beta'd.

Bruce met Diana at a small coffee shop located not far from Metropolis' ridiculous Superman statue. She was staring intently at her laptop, no doubt keeping an eye out for the next shipment of antique vases, the red velvet cake beside her barely touched and her black coffee already cold.

When Bruce sat across from her, she looked up.

“Bruce,” she greeted him neutrally.

“Diana,” he returned.

She took a small box from her purse and slid it across the table. “You were right about the vases from Heraklion,” she said. “They’re a front.”

Bruce took the box and pocketed it in his jacket. “Just as I feared then. The next shipment will likely come from Piraeus.”

Diana frowned. “Hnn… I don’t like what's going on here, Bruce.”

A waiter interrupted their conversation before Bruce could comment. “How may I help you, sir?” he chirped with a nervous smile plastered across his face. Obviously, he had recognized the infamous Bruce Wayne.

Bruce plastered a blinding smile of his own onto his features. “Ah, a handsome young man like you?” he said. “You can bring me a nice cup of cappuccino. Will you tell your pretty barista to draw the Superman symbol onto it for me?”

“Y-yes sir!” the waiter stuttered. He scurried off with a luminous blush forming across his cheeks.

Diana gave him a flat look. “Was that really necessary?”

Bruce smirked, shrugging. “I do have a reputation to maintain.”

“What about your _other_ reputation?” Diana needled.

“What about it?”

Diana narrowed her eyes. “I did a bit of research of my own. The Bat didn't used to take lives. Obviously, that changed. Why?”

The transformation was imperceptible to the casual observer, but Diana could see the exact moment Bruce pulled back into himself. “I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues.”

“You’ve had issues before. What made Jason Todd different from Martha Wayne?”

The glare Diana received from Bruce could've frozen over hell.

“Of course the demigoddess doesn’t understand human relationships,” he forced out through gritted teeth in irritation.

Diana was not deterred. “Explain it to me then. Is this the reason you rounded up our little band? You save Martha Kent, because you couldn’t do the same for Martha Wayne; you resurrect Clark, because you regret Jason?”

It was Bruce’s turn to observe Diana. The demigoddess phrased her thoughts as if they were a statement, but her tone at the end had lifted up to form into an uncertain question.

“I guess I can't fault you for getting that impression with how desperately I had been trying to resurrect Clark. But, no, I didn't do that for Jason. Nor was Superman's resurrection the only purpose of bringing everyone together.”

When Diana continued to look at him in doubt, Bruce asked her a question of his own: “What do you make of Superman?”

“He's a man with the powers of a god.”

“Exactly. He's a _man_.” Bruce made sure to emphasize the last word.

There seemed to be genuine puzzlement in her expression and so Bruce elaborated: “When I first confronted him, I did not think of him as a man. I thought he was some sort of alien overlord hell-bent on subjugating mankind and becoming this world's God. I suppose my thoughts weren't much different from Lex Luthor's in this aspect.”

Bruce wrinkled his nose in distaste at his own admission that he and the supervillain had anything in common.

“What changed?” Diana asked.

“He begged me to save his mother.”

Bruce gave Diana a self-depreciated grin.

“Even though I had used his weakness for kryptonite to push him to the brink, even though his own life was in peril, he still begged for me to save his mother's life without a care for his own. I realized then that he was human, more human than I'd ever been, because he had the courage to do what I could not.”

Diana frowned. “You were just a child,” she pointed out.

It seemed, however, that this fact did not matter to Bruce. His own youthfulness at the time of his parents' death did not absolve him from any of the feelings of guilt he had carried with him for the many decades since that fateful night.

“You wanted to know the reason why I resurrected Superman. This is it. I wanted to bring together a team to protect humanity, but we cannot be heroes for humanity when no one in our team represents the hope within mankind.”

The waiter came back with Bruce's cappuccino, and Bruce gave him a saucy wink. “Thank you, dear,” he said with as much sex-appeal as he could muster. That had the desired effect of making the waiter fluster and scurrying off with haste.

With a significant look at the latte art decorating the top of Bruce’s cappuccino, Diana said, “If Superman is the symbol of Hope, then what are the rest of us supposed to be?”

Bruce let out a thoughtful hum. “I suppose metahumans like Cyborg and The Flash would represent Evolution, the future of humanity. Aquaman symbolizes the Connection that exists between humanity and other peoples. As for you,” Bruce gave a Diana an assessing look, “You would obviously be Love.”

Diana raised an eyebrow. “Love?” she echoed.

“It's the reason why you didn't go back to Themyscira, isn't it? Even though you saw the worst in mankind. Even though you lost hope in us and hid yourself for decades. You still saw something in humanity that was worth loving and that's why you stayed. Am I correct?”

Diana didn't answer and Bruce occupied himself by sipping half-heartedly from his drink.

“You know, when you get to know Clark you'll see the same thing in him that made you love the rest of us faulty humans.”

“What about you?” Diana asked.

“What about me?”

“Will I get to see that same thing in you too?” she elaborated.

Bruce grimaced. “Diana, I may be the only one among us without any superpowers besides my obscene wealth, but I haven't been human since my mother died and I adopted the cowl into my life. Jason was my fault, because my eyes had not been properly focused on the mission. I can't let that happen again. As long as there is the mission, I can never be a man.”

He stood up, his cup only half empty, and dropped a $50-note onto the table.

“Thanks for the help, Diana. I'll contact you when I find out more about Piraeus.”

He walked out of the door, leaving Diana to her own thoughts. It was long after Bruce had gone that Diana came to her conclusion.

“You're wrong, Bruce,” she muttered to herself as she scrolled across a web page about Corinthian pottery on her laptop. “Man has been seeking Justice for the vulnerable since the beginning of time.”

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues." — Batman, Justice League Unlimited (Season 1, Episode 5: This Little Piggy)
> 
> I got the quote from that episode, since I really liked it, but am using it in an entirely different context instead.


End file.
